[R&F] Rise and Fall General Discussion Thread

[Thormodr]

Hmmm...looks like a pretty good expansion on first glance.

Mongols look to be in. Excellent! Perhaps the leader will be Khutulun. She'd be a lot of fun.

Golden ages/Dark ages/Heroic ages all sound cool.

Cautiously optimistic about this one.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

I'm not convinced that the pier is a district. Yes, some of the tents are the same color; but it seems redundant to have two variations on the Entertainment Complex. At least the Harbor provides naval functionality, Food, Housing, and ocean-going trade route connections that make it more than just a Commercial Hub in the water.

And the pier certainly isn't a unique Entertainment Complex. Because unique districts revert to the generic variety and generic districts convert to unique ones when captured. What happens to a generic Entertainment District that suddenly finds itself in the ocean or a civ with a pier UD that conquers a city and find their new pier high on dry land?

I think it is either a city-state suzerainty improvement, or a Wonder.

I think it is just a tech/civic upgrade to the placement of the district. It is particularly helpful for the entertainment as land can sometimes be at a premium and, for most civs, blank coastal tiles offer little benefit. Allowing a player to build this in the water after say the industrial era is just going to have it used more. I don't see anything else being changed (it would basically be a reskin for a water placement).

 

[stealth_nsk]

Difficult to confirm without access to the source code, but the way it seems to be coded you may have to add code for the new features of course, but it's primarily a weight system.

The up is an AI that doesn't require too much code for every balance patch, the down is an AI not that smart which struggle with every special cases.

We could refer to Civ5 code for the principles. Nothing gamebreaking was invented since then.
Yes, most of the decisions are based on weights and that's ok. Speaking about code I meant both programming and data used for this decision. Going back to the discussion, let's say you want to "optimize" how AI engages in alliances (and breaks them). You could fine-tune current weights and add new information sources for the decision, but most of the work will be useless for the expansion, which requires completely different weight numbers with the new alliance system.

 

[trev1972]

Some interesting stuff coming!

Like the idea of golden and dark ages, vaguely remember a previous civ game having them but im old and my memory is going so could be wrong

Great to hear they are adding 'retelling your history' if its implemented well with a HOF etc then thats awesome, i really miss replaying my game, i hate 20 hours play ending with 'yup you won'

Like the idea of emergencies to reign in run away players- that made me think they follow the comments on here you know.

The alliances could be cool PROVIDING they make the AI act in a logical way to the player, i dont think it would work with current AI

Governers sound a good idea, it will be interesting to see how its implemented

Anyone else think they read this board for feedback?

 

[HF22]

I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, insofar as (a) they have long
term plans which we aren't privy to and (b) they know what they are doing.

It is very clear that the latest proposals have been worked on for several
months, perhaps even from well before Civ6 was first released. To get the AI
"perfect" for the game earlier would have been a very poor use of time and
resources, as would have getting the UI to suit those who dislike it in its
present form, or to release modding toolsets for an incomplete version.

Or, in the words of Donald Knuth, the doyen of computer science:
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil".

The AI issues with Civ 6 arise just as much from poorly designed mechanics exposing rather than hiding AI limitations, as from the AI limitations themselves.

Adding more mechanics and more complexity is likely to make that problem worse.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The AI issues with Civ 6 arise just as much from poorly designed mechanics exposing rather than hiding AI limitations, as from the AI limitations themselves.

Adding more mechanics and more complexity is likely to make that problem worse.

Could you tell, what do you mean by "AI limitations"?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Got something that popped up in my imaginative mind.

What if spies now allow you to "assassinate" a governor and cause chaos and instability (removes the governor and lowers loyalty)?

Oh yes, very nice idea. Here's hoping.

 

[Ferocitus]

The AI issues with Civ 6 arise just as much from poorly designed mechanics exposing rather than hiding AI limitations, as from the AI limitations themselves.

Adding more mechanics and more complexity is likely to make that problem worse.

It certainly will if they don't address the issues. If.
I maintain that a large proportion of their effort for the first year
has been on the artistic/audio side of things. That is largely
complete and so more effort can be put into other aspects.
I trust they will, which is as much a guess as your pessimism.
In my favour, I have that they won't want to harm the franchise by
avoiding those issues for much longer. I see nothing in favour of your
opinion, just gloom. Unless you also think they will do something about
issues present and ones that will arise.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The Chiefdom building is nothing; it's just the ability to construct a plain government district. The Theocracy building could be an Apostolic Palace.

I'm hoping they take a leaf out of JFD's "Rule with Faith", & give us 3 governments to choose from when we get Code of Laws-like Polis, Horde & Chiefdom. It would make a nice new touch IMHO.

 

[blackbutterfly]

The problem is what people consider AI like some sort of thinking machine, which could be "clever" or "stupid". It's wrong. The AI is an a set of algorithms covering various areas of the game. Any significant gameplay change causes parts of the code to be thrown away.

Yeah, well I did a Masters in Logic and AI (though I dropped out...to transfer to PhD).

Such so called AI aren't in fact real AI but common computer programs and routines. If you can't solve a problem over one domain, it's not gonna be easier to solve over two.

This time I'm not gonna fork out on a pre-purchase. I'm gonna wait and see until Firaxis fix bugs cos hopefully that'd be incentive for the execs at 2K.

 

[Ferocitus]

Such so called AI aren't in fact real AI but common computer programs and routines.

By "real AI" do you mean AGI?

If you can't solve a problem over one domain, it's not gonna be easier to solve over two.

There is no evidence they were trying to solve the problem over one domain
to completion, i.e. to perform flawlessly under constraints of available RAM
and in acceptable (CPU) time.

This time I'm not gonna fork out on a pre-purchase. I'm gonna wait and see until Firaxis fix bugs cos hopefully that'd be incentive for the execs at 2K.

Repeating the same action in the hope of a different result would be crazy.
I'll pay up front just to give the execs and devs incentive to continue on their
so far very successful path. Crazy, I know.

Good luck with the PhD!

 

[blackbutterfly]

Good luck with the PhD!

That was very many moons ago. I didn't get to start cos I was diagnosed with serious illness and was in hospital. I went to work for Apple afterwards

 

[HF22]

Could you tell, what do you mean by "AI limitations"?

By AI limitations, I mean the inherent restrictions of the AI approach adopted and the budget available.

The things which basically are not able to be economically achieved with the kind of decision tree script AI Civ 6 uses.

 

[Art Morte]

I wonder how the city-flipping through loyalty will be in practice. Sounds like something that will have to be veeeeeery carefully balanced to be a positive thing in the game. If you feel powerless to stop a city from flipping that won't be a good thing, or if you're punished for founding a lot of cities.

 

[HF22]

It certainly will if they don't address the issues. If.
I maintain that a large proportion of their effort for the first year
has been on the artistic/audio side of things. That is largely
complete and so more effort can be put into other aspects.
I trust they will, which is as much a guess as your pessimism.
In my favour, I have that they won't want to harm the franchise by
avoiding those issues for much longer. I see nothing in favour of your
opinion, just gloom. Unless you also think they will do something about
issues present and ones that will arise.

Past performance isn't a guarantee of future results, but its the best predictor we have in these circumstances.

And the performance to date on bugs & AI is poor.

 

[Ferocitus]

That was very many moons ago. I didn't get to start cos I was diagnosed with serious illness and was in hospital. I went to work for Apple afterwards

Plenty of time. I got mine at 50 in fluid dynamics and AI, if you regard
evolutionary algorithms as AI.

So, by real AI, do you mean AGI, or something else?

 

[Ferocitus]

Past performance isn't a guarantee of future results, but its the best predictor we have in these circumstances.

And the performance to date on bugs & AI is poor.

OTOH, Civ5 was far worse at release, and took at least two years to become
a reasonable game. Ignoring that past performance is just cherry-picking.
I'm more than happy to give Civ6 at least 2 years because it is very playable now.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I'm not convinced that the pier is a district.

I thought I heard / read that the pier was something a Governor could build but perhaps I dreamt that lol!

 

[Zenstrive]

Just realized that Governor reminds me of Hero system from Endless series. But looks like Civ VI has its twist on them.
And I just realized why don't they make Great People the Governor? So instead of one time use, they can be upgraded if players want to.
So Great Scientist Darwin can be a governor that boosts Science, reduce religion influence for example.

 

[stealth_nsk]

By AI limitations, I mean the inherent restrictions of the AI approach adopted and the budget available.

The things which basically are not able to be economically achieved with the kind of decision tree script AI Civ 6 uses.

I mean, could you name a few?

P.S. I don't think Civ6 uses "Decision Tree" algorithms. They aren't suitable for strategic games.

Edit:

Just realized that Governor reminds me of Hero system from Endless series. But looks like Civ VI has its twist on them.
And I just realized why don't they make Great People the Governor? So instead of one time use, they can be upgraded if players want to.
So Great Scientist Darwin can be a governor that boosts Science, reduce religion influence for example.

I'm totally in for reusing gameplay elements, but GP and Governors seem to have too different role and mechanic. Governors need to be limited to small number of them, for example.

Besides, I don't think real-life Darwin would be a good Governor